[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 121 (Wednesday, July 29, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1189]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  URGING AWARD OF CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL TO PRESIDENT LYNDON BAINES 
  JOHNSON FOR HIS EXTRAORDINARY RECORD OF ACHIEVEMENT IN THE FIELD OF 
                            DOMESTIC AFFAIRS

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 29, 2015

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the 
House for 1 minute and revise and extend my remarks.
  Today I introduced legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal 
to Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States whose 
vision and leadership secured passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act 
of 1965, the Social Security Amendments Act (Medicare) of 1965, the 
Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Higher Education Act of 1965, and the 
Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965.
  The awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal is long overdue 
recognition of the remarkable record of achievement in the field of 
domestic affairs of the person most responsible for several of the 
nation's landmark laws that mark their 50th anniversary this year.
  Mr. Speaker, as a Member of Congress from the Tenth Congressional 
District of Texas, as Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Vice-
President and President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson's 
domestic accomplishments in the fields of civil rights, education, and 
economic opportunity rank among the greatest achievements of the past 
half century.
  As President, Lyndon Johnson proposed, championed, led to passage, 
and signed into law on August 6, 1965 the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 
which swept away barriers impeding millions of Americans from 
meaningful participation in American political life.
  On July 30, 1965, President Johnson signed into law the Social 
Security Amendments Act of 1965, which we today know as Medicare, which 
has transformed the delivery of health care in the United States and 
which, along with Social Security, reduced the rate of poverty among 
the elderly from 28.5 percent in 1966 to 9.1 percent in 2012.
  On July 2, 1964 President Johnson secured passage and signed into law 
the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the 
Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in employment, 
education, and public accommodations based on race, color, religion, or 
national origin.
  On November 8, 1965, President Johnson signed into law the Higher 
Education Act, which provided need-based financial aid to students in 
the form of scholarships, work-study grants, and loans, and thus for 
the first time made higher education more accessible to populations of 
persons who were previously unable to attend college because of 
economic circumstances.
  On October 3, 1965, President Johnson signed into law the Immigration 
and Naturalization Act of 1965, which transformed the nation's 
immigration system by abolishing the racially based quota system that 
had defined American immigration policy for the previous four decades 
and replaced it with a policy whose central purpose was family 
reunification, with a preference for immigrants with specific 
skillsets.
  According to Robert A. Caro, the preeminent biographer of Lyndon 
Baines Johnson, with the single exception of Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon 
Johnson was the greatest champion of the poor and underprivileged in 
the history of the Republic and was the President ``who wrote mercy and 
justice into the statute books by which America was governed.''
  I invite all Members to join me in sponsoring this legislation 
awarding the Congressional Gold Medal and recognizing the extraordinary 
domestic achievements of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th 
President of the United States.

                          ____________________